> I've never liked the film. Or actually, I don't
know> what to think of> it. It's visually stunning and fast-moving,
but> then, as always in> Friedkin's films, the emotions and the
intellectual> concerns leave me> cold. The movie is contradictory at least and
it> never decides whether> the William Petersen character is a hero or not.
To> me he is just a> boring macho with a mission, but the movie
never> seems to notice that> there could (and probably should, too) be
criticism> pointed toward him.> He's criticized at first, but then he gets away as
a> hero in the> (unintentionally funny) ending.

The plot of the book differs considerably. In the book there
are two sets of agents going after the bad guy, one the
Peterson character and his partner, the other a middle-aged
guy who's about to retire. The Peterson character and his
partner are (as in the film) doing anything they can, legal
or illegal, ethical or unethical, to get their quarry. The
about-to-retire guy is sticking pretty much to the
book.

SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT

In the end, it's the cop who played it straight who gets the
bad guy. The Peterson character ends up dead, and his partner
is arrested and fired.

In an earlier book, ONE-SHOT DEAL, Peteivitch's only series
character, veteran Secret Service Agent Charles Carr is
lecturing a class of rookie treasury agents.

He advises them against crossing certain lines because, a)
it's what separates the good guys from the bad guys and b)
any bad guys you nail by going beyond the pale isn't going to
get that much punishment anyway, so why risk your career for
such a small satisfaction.

In EARTH ANGELS the portagonist, though an undoubted hero,
also steps over the line. Though he achieves a measure of
success, he ends up having to leave law enforcement.

Petievtich seems to be a guy who believes in the rules, or at
least belives there should be consequences for the cops who
break 'em.

JIM DOHERTY

__________________________________________________ Do You
Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone.
http://phone.yahoo.com

--
# To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
# majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .